China Promises to ‘Strike Down’ the Successful Uyghur Rebels in Syria, Endangering Xi

China is calling for stability in Syria while urging global action against Uyghur rebels among the ranks of an Islamist-led coalition that successfully overthrew the Arab nation’s government and now threaten to accelerate their fight against the People’s Republic.

The Turkestan Islamic Party, formerly known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), was among the many insurgent factions that participated in the stunning 11-day offensive that managed to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and over half a century of his family’s rule on Saturday.

A renewed campaign against China could further upend geopolitical squabbling over rising militant activity across Asia and force President Xi Jinping into a decisive battle over one of his nation’s most sensitive internal security challenges.

The Turkestan Islamic Party is primarily comprised of Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking and largely Muslim ethnic group hailing predominantly from the sprawling northwestern Chinese province of Xinjiang. The group seeks to establish an Islamist Uyghur separatist state called “East Turkestan” across Xinjiang, where ETIM waged a violent campaign from the late 1990s through the early 2010s.

After suffering a fierce crackdown by Chinese security forces long accused by the West of oppressing the country’s Uyghur minority, a number of Turkestan Islamic Party rebels joined jihadis battling the Syrian government in a civil war that first erupted in 2011.

Once largely confined to the militant stronghold of northwestern Idlib province and its outskirts, fighters of the Turkestan Islamic Party’s Syrian branch, including commander Abu Mohammed, now march through the streets of Damascus and other major cities.

Members have shared footage in which they address their grievances in Xinjiang to Syrian audiences and threaten to utilize stockpiles of weapons seized from the former Syrian Arab Army against China.

“With the permission of God, his power and strength, the Chinese infidels will soon taste the same torment that the infidels in the Levant tasted,” Turkestan Islamic Party Emir Sheikh Abdul Haq al-Turkestani said in a statement circulated by the group last week.

So far, Beijing appears to be taking a cautious approach. At a time when China is investing heavily in building up its Middle East influence, having forged close bonds with Assad’s government while leaving the door open for a relationship with the new administration led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) faction, Chinese officials are urging a peaceful transition of power.

“The future of Syria should be decided by the Syrian people,” Chinese Embassy to the United States spokesperson Liu Pengyu told Newsweek. “We hope relevant parties will find a political settlement to restore stability and order in Syria for the long-term and fundamental interest of the Syrian people.”

Later, on Friday night, Liu provided additional remarks in which he said that Beijing “noted the reports” of the presence of ETIM’s successor in Syria and affirmed how it “has plotted and carried out a number of violent terrorist attacks both inside and outside China.”

“In recent years,” Liu said, “it has colluded more closely with other international and regional terrorist and separatist forces to plot continuous attacks against overseas Chinese targets and take part in or carry out terrorist activities in relevant countries and regions, which gravely threaten China’s interests and security overseas and seriously undermine the security and stability of relevant countries and regions.”

He also asserted that “China stands ready to step up counterterrorism cooperation with members of the international community to firmly strike down on ETIM and keep the region and the world safe and stable.”

The fall of Assad in Syria marks the second time in around three years that the Turkestan Islamic Party has helped to successfully overthrow a government caught in the throes of civil war. The group also supported the Taliban in its two-decade campaign against the former Afghan government that ultimately collapsed amid a U.S. military withdrawal in August 2021.

China has previously expressed concern over the presence of the Turkestan Islamic Party in Afghanistan, which directly neighbors Xinjiang. While Beijing has yet to extend formal recognition to the current government in Kabul, Chinese officials have regularly engaged with Taliban counterparts on issues such as trade and security.

Having won key victories on two international fronts, the Turkestan Islamic Party, also referred to by its TIP acronym, “will have to make serious decisions,” according to Riccardo Valle, a research analyst and research director at The Khorasan Diary.

“The TIP has achieved its two short-term objectives in Afghanistan and Syria,” Valle told Newsweek. “They have been training a powerful and professional force now with several hundred if not thousands of militants who have experienced decade-long battles in Afghanistan and Syria.”

“Now, the question is what will come next,” he added. “The TIP might opt for targeting Chinese assets abroad or acting like a mercenary group like many Central Asian groups have been doing. But eventually, the TIP will have to address its long-term goal. Now that both conflicts have ended, they have no more reasons to postpone it indefinitely.”

The recent developments in Syria also come as the Afghanistan-based Khorasan branch of the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) accelerates recruitment in Central Asia, including among Uyghurs, and simultaneously steps up bloody operations in Afghanistan and beyond, claiming earlier this year some of the deadliest-ever attacks in Iran and Russia.

Meanwhile, other insurgent groups, such as the Balochistan Liberation Army, have specifically targeted Chinese citizens in Pakistan. The surge in militant attacks has drawn calls from Beijing for greater counterterrorism cooperation between the two nations, including a three-week joint military exercise launched on Wednesday.

At home, China has largely managed to avoid such bloodshed since launching its “Strike Hard Campaign Against Violent Terrorism” a decade ago in Xinjiang. At the same time, the United States and Western allies have accused Xi of overseeing widespread human rights abuses, even claims of genocide, against the nation’s Uyghurs through the use of mass internment camps, a charge the Chinese leader and his government have vehemently denied.

Newsweek has reached out to the Syrian Transitional Government and the Turkestan Islamic Party for comment.

The issue has emerged as a significant factor in the tensions plaguing ties between Beijing and Washington as the two superpowers engage in global competition.

In the final months of his first term, the administration of President-elect Donald Trump, who is set to return to the White House in January, removed ETIM from the U.S. Terrorism Exclusion List in November 2020, citing a lack of activity from the group.

ETIM had been first added to the list in 2004 under then-President George W. Bush as he waged a global “war on terror” in the wake of the 9/11 attacks perpetrated by Al-Qaeda in 2001.

“Terrorism is a common enemy of mankind,” Liu said in his follow-up remarks late Friday. “Combating ETIM is a core concern of China in its counterterrorism effort and a shared responsibility of the international community.”

Liu stated that “ETIM was listed by the UN Security Council as a terrorist organization and combating ETIM is a shared responsibility of the international community.” He said that “China stands ready to deepen communication and coordination with Afghanistan and relevant countries to strike down on ETIM and keep the region and the world safe and stable.”

He also decried Washington’s decision to remove ETIM’s designation as a terrorist organization.

“The United States’s action of removing ETIM from its list of terrorist organizations has proven that it has politicized and weaponized counterterrorism issue,” Liu said, “we firmly oppose this.”

China is also “highly concerned about the situation in Syria, which has been volatile recently,” according to Liu.

“China has long pursued a policy of friendship and cooperation with Syria, never interfered in Syria’s internal affairs, and respected the choice of the Syrian people,” he said. “We support Syria in realizing peace at the earliest, implementing Security Council resolution 2254, advancing the domestic political process in accordance with the principle of ‘Syrian-led, Syrian-owned’, and finding a rebuilding plan that meets the wishes of the people through inclusive dialogue.”

“The future Syria should firmly oppose all forms of terrorism and extremist forces,” he added.

Today, the U.S. also finds itself in a difficult position in Syria, where Washington opposed Assad’s rule and backed rebel groups in the early years of Syria’s civil war, later shifting its aid to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The U.S. now contends with a new transitional government led by HTS, which the State Department still considers to be a terrorist organization due to its Al-Qaeda allegiance that was officially rescinded by the group in 2016.

As for the Turkestan Islamic Party, President Joe Biden’s administration has previously acknowledged to Newsweek the group’s links to Al-Qaeda in Syria. The State Department spokesperson also said then that the U.S. viewed the Turkestan Islamic Party as a largely distinct entity from ETIM.

The comments came after a representative of the Turkestan Islamic Party’s political office told Newsweek in September 2021, a month after the U.S. exited Afghanistan, that the group viewed the U.S. as a potential ally in its battle against China.

After Newsweek contacted the U.S. State Department for additional comment on Thursday, a spokesperson said that “we do not preview deliberations about terrorist designations or delistings.”

While references to the Turkestan Islamic Party have been sparse throughout the Biden administration, reports issued by the United Nations have consistently referred to the group’s activities in Afghanistan and Syria, linking it directly to ETIM.

The most recent sanctions monitoring report released by the U.N. in July asserted that the Turkestan Islamic Party cooperated directly with and received financial assistance from HTS.

The report cited one unnamed U.N. member state as saying that the group had “increased audio and video recordings to expand its audience internationally, particularly to encourage Muslim women to participate in terrorist activities,” while also maintaining potential links to ISIS.

China has continued to raise the issue in international forums as well, with officials having for years espoused their staunch opposition to the “three evils” of terrorism, separatism and extremism.

But Valle, for his part, noted that Beijing had displayed a “quite pragmatic” approach to the Taliban, officially known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA). Much would rest on how local leaders handle the issue both there and in Syria, he argued.

“I believe it will really come down to what IEA and HTS in Afghanistan and Syria will decide in relation to the TIP,” Valle said, “if they will be able to tame the group and find an agreement which could prevent the TIP from starting to focus on its long-term objective of liberating Xinjiang.”